THERE’S A NEW
SHERIFF IN TOWN

As Seen On

BORN IN THE MCA

The MCA financing business has a bad rap and the MCA Sheriff is here to clean up the loan agency industry as it relates to MCA financing, which is historically known for being accused of engaging in predatory lending and collection practices, driving merchants out of business, upending individual finances, and displacing families from their homes.  The industry is also known for being accused of bankrupting grandpas and grandmas who are in their twilight years, and lost businesses years before.  No more.  The MCA Sheriff is working to put an end to these practices.

The Lawyer James, aka the MCA Sheriff, is a New York merchant cash advance attorney representing merchants since 2018, and has been practicing law since 2001.  He has worked in many industries sectors, including lending, commercial and residential real estate, including telecommunications, technology, sub-prime lending, social media, apparel, fashion, cosmetics, entertainment, sports, agriculture, medical, airline, construction, import export, non-profit, food and beverage manufacturing and distribution, restaurant, transportation, diamond, security, household goods, large and small scale manufacturing, and food production.  Some are confused with loan agency affiliation because MCAs are not loans.

Regardless of the industry, the lifeblood of a business is cash.  Without cash, the business dies.  That cash can come from sales, or from financing, or from a combination of the two.  Debt, when used properly, can help leverage a business to generate revenue.  

The issue that a lot of business owners face is that they get in over their heads, or they don’t have enough cash to either carry them through the short term, or to make capital expenditures that would increase their sales, and cash flow.  This can be for a variety of reasons.  One reason is that the business was undercapitalized in the first instance.  This means that the merchant did not adequately forecast the cash needs of the business.  This may have been because of lack of ability, or lack of resources, or may have been due to a valiant effort, but something was off, or unexpected. It happens.  Another reason is that sales are low or nonexistent.  Without sales, and without cash, it is impossible to run a business.  There are a couple of ways to increase sales.  One is to actively market, and there are lots of ways to do this.  If you don’t have any cash, then you will have to put foot to pavement.  Even if you do have cash, this foot to payment method is still a good one.  But backing up even more, you need to identify your ideal and likely buyer, and that, of course, depends on your industry, and a loan agency would look at this.

Once you have identified your ideal and likely buyer, or your customer, or your client, you need to determine the best way to get in front of that client.  One of the best things to do is to cold call your prospective clients.  You can do that by picking up the phone and dialing, or you can literally put foot to pavement and make site visits.  This would get your face in front of people, literally, and this makes the most sense to do if you do not have the funds to devote to other marketing.  And in terms of other marketing, there are options, but those typically take money to deploy.  This is one of the reasons why you might need cash in the form of a merchant cash advance:  to fund advertising or marketing expenses.  A lot of people like to do social media ads, but be careful that you are not simply throwing money away that does not generate quality leads.  It’s super important for you to get in front of buyers who have both the willingness and ability to buy from you.  This is what any loan agency would perhaps consider.

Once you’ve determined the best way to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers, the next step is to determine what your average sale will be.  This is very important, and you might want to determine that average sale in the first instance.  It’s all related.  This is important because if you are selling something that is $10, it’s a lot different than selling something that is $100, or $1,000.  With this you will need to also figure out your monthly expenses, and identify your break-even point.  If your monthly expenses is $2,000, then you will need to sell 200 of a $10 item or service, 20 of a $100 item or service, or 2 of a $1,000 item.  You will also need to see how many people you need to contact in order to make one sale, and then at that point it is just a matter of math.  So, if you need to talk to 30 people to get 1 sale, then for the $10 item, you will need to speak with 6,000 people just to break even; these numbers matter to a loan agency.  If that is per month, then you will need to speak with 200 people per day.  And “speak with” does not literally mean to speak with on the phone; it could also mean contact, or a “touch,” and this could mean visits to your website or physical store, or office, depending on how you operate your business.

After you perform these analyses, you will then see what you need to do, i.e., how much revenue you would need to generate, in order to turn a profit.  A lot of people do not do this exercise before going into business, and are therefore caught by surprise when they cannot pay their bills.  It is a beautiful thing to be able to start a business, it’s another thing entirely to sustain it.  In order to sustain it, you will need to make sure you are making the appropriate level of effort to contact your ideal and likely buyers.

In addition to pounding the pavement, there are other ways to attract clients.  One is by search engine optimization, or SEO, which gets you in front of ideal and likely buyers who are intentionally searching for the goods or services you provide, like this page for the term loan agency.  The higher you rank, the more visibility you get.  There’s also direct mail, which targets your ideal and likely buyers as well, and you can utilize MCA financing products to fund this as well, but be sure that the revenue you generate is not only sufficient to cover your overhead, but also to cover the debt service on the advances.  It’s critical that you factor this into your budgeting.